Artifact Creature
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0: Urza’s Avenger gets -1/-1 and your choice of banding, flying, first strike, or trample until end of turn. Attribute losses and ability gains are culmulative.
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Unable to settle on just one design, Urza decided to create one versatile being.
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4/4

As the flavour text says, this card is really flexible. 4/4, and -1/-1 to gain an ability. Not bad. Want to get a Flying menace to pokey your opponent? Go ahead. Need First Strike? Bring it in. It's a fun creature. But the cost is pretty expensive. Think twice about placing this in a deck.

3/5.

Shadow Trainer

28th May 2006, 9:35 PM

A high cost to play, but a small cost for great utility. 3/5

skiboydoggy

29th May 2006, 11:45 AM

I forgot what banding was, oh well.
It's useful, and in Mirrodin the Artifact Mana Accel, it can come out on the third turn fairly easily.

Felix Feral Fezirix

30th May 2006, 2:24 PM

I need to check up on banding......

klducks

1st June 2006, 6:39 AM

Since the mechanic is so old, i forgot what Banding is aswell, lmao.

502.10. Banding

502.10a Banding is a static ability that modifies the rules for declaring attackers and assigning combat damage.

502.10b As a player declares attackers, he or she may declare that any number of those creatures with banding, and up to one of those creatures without banding, are all in a "band." (Defending players can't declare bands but may use banding in a different way; see rule 502.10h.)

502.10c A player may declare as many attacking bands as he or she wants, but each creature may be a member of only one of them.

502.10d Once an attacking band has been announced, it lasts for the rest of combat, even if something later removes the banding ability from one or more creatures. However, creatures in a band that are removed from combat are also removed from the band.

502.10e If an attacking creature becomes blocked by a creature, each other creature in the same band as the attacking creature becomes blocked by that same blocking creature.
Example: A player attacks with a band consisting of a creature with flying and a creature with swampwalk. The defending player, who controls a Swamp, can block the flying creature if able. If he or she does, then the creature with swampwalk will also become blocked by the blocking creature(s).

502.10f Banding doesn't cause attacking creatures to share abilities, nor does it remove any abilities. The attacking creatures in a band are separate permanents.

502.10g If one member of a band would become blocked due to an effect, the entire band becomes blocked.

502.10h A player who controls an attacking creature with banding chooses how combat damage is assigned by creatures blocking that creature. A player who controls a blocking creature with banding chooses how combat damage is assigned by creatures it blocks. If the creature had banding when it attacked or blocked but the ability was removed before the combat damage step, damage is assigned normally.

502.10i Multiple instances of banding on the same creature are redundant.

Felix Feral Fezirix

1st June 2006, 2:03 PM

I don't get it. So you can only band creatures with banding together?

skiboydoggy

4th June 2006, 10:22 AM

So, you band creatures together, and then they get blocked together, and it seems like a really useless ability...

Felix Feral Fezirix

4th June 2006, 12:43 PM

Not really. Weenie decks, I say.

Although in other instances, yeah, banding sucks.....You just use it to overpower a bigger monster. >_<

skiboydoggy

4th June 2006, 3:11 PM

Ursa's Avenger's not weenie... -_-"

Felix Feral Fezirix

5th June 2006, 4:58 PM

As in, use it with a weenie. For extra power.

WhiteWizard42

6th June 2006, 3:37 PM

the main good point of banding is that it lets you decide how the opponent's combat damage is dealt.

a 3/3 vs a 3/3 and a 2/2 banded together, the player with banding creatures has 2 damage dealt to the 3/3 and 1 to the 2/2, so both survive.

3 3/3's and a 1/1, all banded together, vs. a 10/10: 10 damage to the 10/10, killing it, and 10 damage to the 1/1, making it a minimal loss.

and you can band any number of creatures that have banding together with 1 creature that doesn't.

klducks

6th June 2006, 4:09 PM

the main good point of banding is that it lets you decide how the opponent's combat damage is dealt.

a 3/3 vs a 3/3 and a 2/2 banded together, the player with banding creatures has 2 damage dealt to the 3/3 and 1 to the 2/2, so both survive.

3 3/3's and a 1/1, all banded together, vs. a 10/10: 10 damage to the 10/10, killing it, and 10 damage to the 1/1, making it a minimal loss.

and you can band any number of creatures that have banding together with 1 creature that doesn't.
Seeing as you know quite a lot about Banding, might giving us an indepth ruling of Banding? (As the rules from the comprehensive rules didnt help much). Like how the damage is dealt and such...

Felix Feral Fezirix

9th June 2006, 12:28 PM

Yeah. Especially me, the ignorant freak.

skiboydoggy

10th June 2006, 5:15 PM

And me, the ignorant but not freak.

Felix Feral Fezirix

13th June 2006, 5:21 AM

So basically you get to control damage distribution in a band, huh? Now, I would like to find a banding card...

skiboydoggy

13th June 2006, 7:19 AM

Banding still sucks IMO. Nothing compared to Trample, Unblockable, First Strike, and some others. The staple basically.

Felix Feral Fezirix

14th June 2006, 4:29 AM

Well, it does help you live through beatdown...

Rudimentarybrain

14th June 2006, 4:51 AM

Here I'll try and help explain by noting a similarity, say youre attacked by a 4/4 with trample and you have a 3/3 a 1/1 and a 2/2, you use all of them to block, and then the controller of the 4/4 gets to distribute the damage as he/she would like, like 3 damage to the 3/3 and 1 to the 1/1, or 2 damage to the 2/2 and 1 to the 1/1 and so on, now think of banding as being just like this except:
1) your creatures are attacking
2) you get to decide how to distribute the damage
So anyway, I don't like this card, its pathetic, Why play this when you can play Morphling? 1/5

Felix Feral Fezirix

17th June 2006, 4:15 AM

The main thing about this card is that it doesn't have a set amount of abilities AND you can play its ability as an instant. Say you're blocking a 3/3 creature. Pull First Strike and block him. Poof. It's flexible, and banding allows you to be evil when blocking and shift the damage to a 1/1 creature, therefore minimising loss. You get my point?

Rudimentarybrain

18th June 2006, 1:05 AM

no pikachuism dont do it! this card is BAD! thumbs down, Use morphling instead of this!

Felix Feral Fezirix

18th June 2006, 1:59 PM

If I can even get either of them. >_<

skiboydoggy

18th June 2006, 6:03 PM

Morphling isn't difficult to obtain, I'm going to ask around and buy it if I can.
Morphling...

Shadow the Hedgehog

20th June 2006, 1:23 AM

Hmm. Banding huh? Hurray for archaic mechanics! Before my time but I have a couple of banding Kjeldoran(sp?) Soldier and some pegasus. Remember Horsemanship?

Felix Feral Fezirix

20th June 2006, 12:00 PM

Morphling can only fly, untap and change its power and toughness...

skiboydoggy

21st June 2006, 11:01 AM

Morphling is useful, a creature which can block an unlimited number of other creatures is useful, and Morphling pseudos that.
But Unhinged's Greater Morphling is much more lol.

morphling can also make itself invulnerable to spells, one of the best creatures to run in MUC along with meloku, and thieving magpie is always fun. anyways, untaping a pumpable creature is really good, especially in MUC because you wont be using many creatures, and if the attacker has enough power to kill your morphling then you arent playing your field control right. come on, attack for 5, untap, block for five if needed, continue until opponent is dead, and they cant bounce or kill your morphling due to its U: morphling cannot be the target of spells or abilities until end of turn, but seriously just play it smart and you should be able to keep him out easily.

Felix Feral Fezirix

24th June 2006, 10:54 AM

A fast solution.

Counterspell.

The minute people see it, it's dead.

Compared to this, which has a higher chance of going through a counterspell barrier when your opponent is being picky.

skiboydoggy

24th June 2006, 4:22 PM

U: This creature cannot be target of spells abilities blahblah.

The thing is, you simply cannot hope to beat it with Counterspells. The fact that each spell costs at most U does something about it.

Rudimentarybrain

26th June 2006, 11:01 PM

You cant use morphlings abilities before it comes into play, therefore your opponent can counterspell it, however, morphling is used in MUC, and if your morphling is countered its because youre not playing your control right.